


I will not give you up (I will not let you down)

by AnotherAnonymousAuthor



Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-30
Updated: 2018-01-30
Packaged: 2019-03-11 11:27:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13523277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnotherAnonymousAuthor/pseuds/AnotherAnonymousAuthor
Summary: This was not the plan. College was not the plan. Just no. But somehow that's where Beca finds herself. College. Ugh.





	I will not give you up (I will not let you down)

**Author's Note:**

> This story starts off as Beca starts Barden, and follows through each year of and after college until the end of Pitch Perfect 3. Because it follows the movies with references to scripted lines and plot, there will be some Beca/Jesse until my plot becomes broader and Beca/Chloe begins.

Atlanta was not the plan.

The east coast was not the plan.

 _College was not Beca’s plan_.

It’s way too hot and way too humid and now Beca is three levels past cranky after having to jostle with the other passengers at the baggage carousel, so far that playing with mixes can’t even fix her mood while she waits in line for a cab.

The jeans and boots she’s wearing is fine for her little home town an hour north of Seattle, even for southern California in mid-afternoon in early August.

But it is not okay for Atlanta, she decides, and groans when she accepts her fate that a cab fare is going to eat a significant portion of her cash to get to college.

Maybe she’ll melt before she has to pay the driver, and then she won’t have to go at all.

It’s her paternally inherited stubbornness that stops her from calling her father for a ride.

It’s all his fault that she’s here instead.

Ugh, college.

-

Beca definitely has her priorities in order.

First, set up her mixing equipment. She’s going to have to buy a power board.

Second, maybe unpack a few things and have a shower. She needs to call her mother at some point.

Third, try not to offend the roommate she has to live with for the school year more than what she already has.

-

The only reason she’s here is because she promised her mother that she would try.

And hey, even though she gets to say goodbye to ninety-seven dollars and change in an effort to avoid being stuck in an enclosed space with her father for an extended period of time, she gets to say hello to a daily four storey climb to her dorm room, a free tertiary education, and her very own rape whistle.

But it doesn’t mean that she has to like it.

When Beca was thirteen, her father walked out and she’s never really forgiven him for it.

So when he shows up at her dorm room unannounced trying to make a funny, Beca does the mature thing that definitely proves she would be fine in Los Angeles by herself, and walks out on him with her new best friend Kimmy-Jin.

(They’re not best friends. Kimmy-Jin definitely hates her, but she doesn’t tell him that. It’s a matter of pride.)

-

The activities fair is loud and chaotic and for a moment it makes Beca a little apprehensive about being so far from home.

So she slips her headphones on and turns the volume up loud enough to drown out her anxieties and Sigma Beta Theta chanting from the other side of the quad.

This is how she likes it; alone in a crowd of people that she can’t hear over David Guetta and Queen. Her heart is in her throat but it matches the beat pulsing through her ears so it’s not so bad.

Beca reinforces a few thoughts in the hour she spends aimlessly wandering the activities fair; acapella is a real thing and dude, can you believe people do it by choice; eyes can actually be _that_ blue; this is not where she wants to be.

(Although it doesn’t stop her from stopping at the Quidditch Club booth and admitting that she’s a Ravenclaw).

“Glorified Glee Club? It seems kind of lame,” Beca mutters. “You do this on purpose?”

Sarcasm is an acceptable replacement for a personality, in Beca’s opinion.

She gets called a bitch, and potentially deserves it, and then politely declines an invitation to audition (she doesn’t want to make a _complete_ dick of herself).

She keeps the flyer though, "I don’t really sing. Sorry.”

Ugh, college.

-

Beca Mitchell is kind of a loner.

(And kind of fucking clumsy, but that’s another story in and of itself. And when one is as clumsy as Beca is, carrying around a few thousand dollars worth of equipment at any given time is a recipe for disaster, if Beca could actually cook that is).

Not that it bothers her, because it definitely doesn’t dude. She likes solitude. It means she gets to do what she wants and when she wants with little interference. It also means that she doesn’t have to rely on other people, because let’s face it, people can be kind of shitty.

So sarcasm is the front she puts up so she doesn’t have to be disappointed by other people.

While Beca never had a problem making friends or communicating with her peers, she never had the desire to commit to the social conformity of each social clique at school.

So sitting by yourself in the quad early on a Tuesday morning with a tall triple shot Americano because your roommate as an eight am class but chooses to be up at six for some unknown reason is cool.

Right?

Beca is kind of a loner, but don’t confuse that with being lonely. Those are two different things. The idea of being at college and having to interact with people she doesn’t know, and doesn’t want to be around sounds fucking exhausting.

Netflix and avoiding responsibilities sounds better.

But she promised that she would try.

“Don’t forget about auditions,” comes from her left.

When she looks up, there’s an unmistakable shade of red and blue smiling at her.

-

Beca needs a job.

While she and her mother had never been broke, their financial situation had left going to college for Beca as a pipedream far, far away over at Hogwarts. Or something like that, she thinks. Until her SAT scores came back as good enough for Barden, which conveniently happened to be the school that employed her father.

All of her equipment had been bought with the minimum wage cash she scraped up working a few nights a week at the local small town diner, and selling mediocre mixes to her peers for their parties.

So the Campus Radio Station seems as good as a place as any to start.

Except she can’t play music, she isn’t even allowed in the booth and all she gets to do is stack CD’s. If she was alone, it wouldn’t be so bad.

At least she could spite her father.

“It’s the Prius guy,” she drawls from behind the desk that they’re definitely not allowed to have sex on (she doesn’t even want to touch it). He’s late and their new boss isn’t impressed.

“Jesse,” he replies, “I sang to you.”

He flirts and she tries to deflect; he’s kind of cute in that boy next door kind of way but he’s kind of presumptuous and definitely full of himself and genuinely excited to join the acapella Backstreet Boys.

“Dude, congrats. You just became less attractive.”

-

“She calls me ‘dude’ a lot,” she hears Jesse mutter under his breath to Luke a few days later.

“Women will do that when they’re not interested.”

Beca isn’t going to correct him: she calls _everybody_ dude.

She also can’t help herself and smirks. “The dude knows women.”

-

On Friday, Beca gets cornered by her father.

“It’s been a month, Becs. I know you’re mad at me, but I can’t just let you waste your life away in this room while you fiddle around with that equipment I know nothing about.”

“I don’t understand why you won’t support me.”

She’s going to be late for class, and he starts on about how seedy the profession she dreams about can be. Fucking cable.

“This is supposed to be the time of your life, the transition period to help you prepare for all those scary things that life will throw at you in four years.” She’s borderline glaring at him. “Friends. Do you have any friends?”

Kimmy-Jin isn’t there to deny it, so she dobs her roommate in.

“Try something, and put yourself out there. Something, anything,” he points at the acapella audition flyer sitting on her desk.

“I got a job at the radio station?”

“That dark, dirty little hole?”

This is the part when Beca stops actively tuning in to what he says to pack her bag.

She wonders if he understands how much she doesn’t like him, and half of the time downright despises the fact that they’re related. Beca knows how to hold a grudge, and when your mother is counting on you some nights to bring dinner home, it’s hard to forgive the guy who should have been there to help but was instead hooking up with a sales rep.

“I’ll make you a deal.” Beca perks up. “I want what’s best for you. Put yourself out there, and try, really try to get involved and make some friends, and if in a year you still don’t want to be here, I’ll help you to move to LA.”

It’s so tempting to say yes.

But at the same time, she wants to say no on principle.

She settles in the middle and walks out, “I’ll think about it.”

-

On Wednesday, she forgets that the bathrooms are co-ed.

Again.

“Oh, man.”

Three levels past cranky is going on four levels when Beca realises that the air conditioning is still busted in the entirety of Baker Hall, and her two o’clock English Literature professor has just set a fifteen hundred word essay.

“I’m talking loud, not saying much. I’m criticised but all your bullets ricochet.”

“You can sing!”

“What the actual fuck, dude?!” There’s blue and red and the stall tiles are cold against her shoulder, and she’s _naked._

Beca is naked and the girl from the acapella booth is naked and standing right in front of her.

In her shower stall.

“Your voice is beautiful, you have to audition for the Bella’s.”

“Dude! I don’t _have_ to do anything. I can’t concentrate on anything until you cover your junk.” It takes a lot for Beca to make sure her filter is working, and to be rather honest, she’s pretty impressed that she manages what she does when her inner monologue is a broken record of _‘don’t look down, don’t look down’_. “Seriously, I am nude.”

It escalates quickly and Beca doesn’t understand how they went from _singing to_ _masturbation_ but she’s absolutely fucking horrified. And this girl doesn’t seem to understand boundaries, and oh God Beca’s pretty sure she’s about to have a panic attack.

(That hasn’t happened since her junior year).

As much of a front as Beca puts on for her father and the people she has to interact with on a day to day basis, it’s total bullshit. Situations like this remind Beca exactly how small she actually is, when the other personalities dominate the shower stall even if that isn’t the intention and it takes a little more effort to breathe.

She almost passes out because she can’t tell if it’s better to be facing this girl and avoiding eye contact, or facing the wall to show her bare arse. Beca is pretty sure that singing a duet in the dorm showers with another girl while naked was not what her father had in mind when he said to ‘try new things’.

And then the intensity is gone, and replaced with something softer and a smile, and then Beca forgets about her fears for three point nine seconds.

“You have a lovely voice.”

-

“I know you aren’t your Dad’s biggest fan, and Lord knows most of the time neither am I,” her mother says.

Wednesday nights when Kimmy-Jin has a Korean Student Association gathering is when Beca calls her mother.

“I can hear the ‘but’ coming from two thousand, seven hundred miles away,” Beca retorts.

“But,” she concedes, “maybe he has a point.”

The feeling that sat in the pit of stomach after that _confrontation_ in the showers returns. “Why are you siding with him?”

“Honey, socialising is a part of life. You know this. And while I know you don’t need it to get by in your day to day life the same way other people might, you will kind of have to do it at some point. Think of it as a dry run for LA when you get there.”

Her mother has a point. And a suave way with words that makes Beca feel a little guilty for sulking.

“He wants me to join a stupid club.”

“He wants you to make some friends. But ultimately it doesn’t matter where they come from or how you meet them.”

There’s a few beats of silence, and Beca misses her mother terribly. She can imagine the crinkle under her right eye when she smiles with that proud expression.

“Rebecca Anne Mitchell, please?”

“Come on, the full name. Really? You know that parts of my soul die when you use the full name.”

“Yeah, I know. But I feel like it’s the proud, stubborn parts that need to be annihilated.”

“Okay, fine. I’ll try.”

Well played, parental unit.

Ugh!

-

The guy at the counter of Barden’s Beans looks down at her when she shows up at six sharp on Thursday.

He’s really tall, okay? He doesn’t look impressed at a college student who is up before eight and Beca wants to ask him if he’s afraid of ceiling fans.

She doesn’t though because that would rude and silently hands over seven dollars, for her coffee and a muffin before settling under her new favourite tree in the corner of the quad to watch the world wake up.

How do you tell the difference between a freshman and a senior at college? The freshman are the ones that run to class fifteen minutes before the hour hits, and the seniors walk slowly.

(Beca doesn’t _run_ so it’s not a bad thing that Kimmy-Jin is up this early; at least Beca is on time to the Philosophy class she doesn’t really want to go to. It’s only five weeks and she’s exhausted already).

“Hi.”

Beca doesn’t actually hear the greeting, but there are a pair of feet standing directly in front of her in the grass so now she has to take her headphones off and look up and almost regrets it.

“Sorry?”

Blue and red.

Although the red could be the blush creeping up Beca’s neck and all the way into the roots of her dark hair. _Oh God, why are beautiful people so intimidating?_

“I said ‘hi’.”

Beca crosses her arms; she feels oddly underdressed. “Hi.”

“I’m Chloe. I wanted to apologise for last week.” She’s smiling and Beca smiles awkwardly and Chloe takes it as an invitation to sit down. “It wasn’t my intention to make you uncomfortable; respecting personal boundaries is not a strong suit.”

“You scored a few extra points for that.”

“I heard you singing and I got really excited,” Beca pauses in shifting a few bars around, eyes wide and Chloe back pedals quickly. “Not _excited_ , excited. The Bella’s need new blood and your voice was beautiful.”

“Thanks, I think.”

Chloe smiles and Beca melts a little bit. “Auditions are tomorrow at three. I hope you’ll be there. I have to get to class, but I’ll see you around.”

“Yeah.” Her mother’s pleading voice sounds in her ears. “Uh, Chloe?”

The redhead turns with a smile and Beca is pretty sure that the wind changed when she was a child.

“Yes?”

“I’m Beca.”

-

Ugh.

Acapella.

Beca can’t do any of those things, make any of those sounds, or beats without a computer and her mixing gear. And there’s a crowd, and red in front at the directors table with blonde.

So she waits until the end, frowning at an accent and a comment around wrestling with wombats, and lets Chloe beckon her out to centre stage only to regret it a little.

“I didn’t have time to prepare.”

“That’s okay, you can sing anything.” Beca has this feeling that Chloe just wants to hear her sing, and wonders if her face hurts from smiling so much or is it like a muscle adaption when you walk in heels long enough?

Ugh.

Blond isn’t impressed when she tips the cup out all over the desk, but she doesn’t say anything.

With a breath, Beca sees blue and starts.

With a smirk and the suppression of cockiness because she _fucking nailed that_ , Beca sees the boy next door.

-

Jesse doesn’t say a lot.

They’ve graduated to stacking records as well, and even lunch or dinner runs for Luke.

He tries to make her laugh.

He succeeds a few times.

-

Ah yes, the social rituals of initiation nights.

Chloe still hadn’t stopped smiling as she offered a cup of the blood of the sisters that had come before them because it’s tradition. And they better keep it or the wolves will descend (Beca secretly thinks that means Aubrey).

“Dude.”

“Don’t worry. It’s Boones Farm.”

Amy maybe is saying that she’s the best thing to come out of Australia since Fosters, whatever that is, and being glad that they let her fat arse in.

Beca’s throat is burning and there’s fingers tangled with hers and all she can see is blue and red as she gets dragged out to the amphitheatre.

“Stay classy, Swanson,” Beca yells, when they glide (not stumble, because now they are Bella’s and they’re ladies, and Beca feels kind of out of place) past the Trebles spray painting private property.

-

Her first college party.

There’s too many people.

Chloe invades her personal space and in turn Beca advises her to make good choices. When she’s told that they’re going to be fast friends, Beca wonders if she has a choice in this one.

She doesn’t have her headphones.

Beca wonders how long is a socially appropriate amount of time spent at a party before she can leave.

Jesse brings her a drink and she nurses it for as long as she can until he offers a refill, and then skirts around the edges of the party.

This is Beca trying.

It counts, right? Even if she’s not actually interacting with her peers and now fellow social club members, she’s still a member so it counts.

It feels _weird_ that this is her current social circle.

Beca can’t decide though if it is a good kind of weird or the shitty kind.

“Be-caw!” He’s back with another beer. “I’m one of those acapella boys, you’re one of those acapella girls. It’s inevitable, we’re going to make aca-babies one day.”

“Keep dreaming, dude.”

But she still smiles.

-

In the morning, Beca wonders if she’s made a mistake.

Chloe is still smiling at her.

Aubrey is being a dick.

Two girls are gone within fifteen minutes of their first practice. Fraternising with the enemy isn’t allows and Stacie smirks.

“You call it a dude?” Beca laughs because that’s one of the funniest things she’s ever heard.

“Not a good enough reason to use the word penetrate.”

-

Her first college party and Beca sleeps all weekend once her three hour practice is over, doing her assignments tiredly from beneath her covers.

Sensory overload as a result of social interactions can do that to her sometimes. Okay, a lot of the time.

And a verbal disagreement with her acapella captain (who drains her as much as her father does) tops the list.

“Beca, a word?”

Silently, she rolls her eyes and turns back to Aubrey.

“You know you’ll have to take those ear monstrosities out for the Fall Mixer.”

“You really don’t like me do you?” Beca is only here because Chloe vetoed her. That much she knows.

“It’s your attitude.”

“You don’t even know me, dude.”

“I know you have a Toner for a Treble.” _Seriously, first the aca-words and now the musical related euphemisms._ “A musical boner. It’s very distracting.”

“You’re not in charge of me and that oath already cost you two girls, you need me more than I need you.”

“I can see your toner through those jeans!”

“That’s my dick!”

It’s not Beca’s best moment but the point still stands, she thinks as she snatches her bag and makes her way to the station. At least there she doesn’t have to put much energy into stacking CD’s with Jesse, who she plans to tell all about what a fucking Toner is.

-

She’s in a group of people.

Smack bang in the fucking middle of twelve girls singing at some frat party.

They sound like shit.

The stares they’re getting don’t inspire confidence, and to top it off, even she is wondering when the in-flight meal is coming around because the entertainment selection is kind of crappy.

And then Aubrey is yelling at everyone and Chloe has nodes ( _‘oh no’_ , thinks Beca, until her inner bad-arse kicks in and clears its voice, _‘I mean, whatever those are_ ’) but she keeps performing because she loves to sing.

“It’s just like that time my lady doctor told me not to have sex for six weeks but I did it anyways,” explains Stacie.

“You really should listen to your Doctor,” cringes Amy. It’s the first sensible thing Beca has heard her say so far. “Don’t worry, Chloe. It’s just God punishing you because you’re a ginger.”

-

It’s still warm enough that Beca doesn’t need a sweater outside.

Procrastination is the easiest way for Beca to chill out. And that usually translates to hours buried in her mixing programs, the volume turned up and her blinders on.

But then Jesse drops next to her on the grass next to her.

People here have this annoying knack of just letting themselves into Beca’s immediate space without asking first. Forced social interaction only drain her more quickly.

“As much as I love stacking CD’s with you, and I do, more than life itself, I thought we could do something that doesn’t make us want to kill ourselves.”

Movies are spread across the bath towel he’s set out on the grass.

Beca doesn’t really watch movies; it was one of those things she used to do with her dad. And then you know…

“This is what I want to do when I grow up: score movies. Bring people to tears, blow people’s minds. Only music can do that.”

“Yeah, something like that. You must really sweep your girlfriend off her feet.”

“I don’t have a girlfriend.”

It clicks for Beca. He’s flirting with her on purpose. “But you have juice boxes and ‘Rocky’!”

“Which one do you want to watch first?” He looks so excited, and as much as Beca smothers her day to day personality with sarcastic and witty remarks, she still feels guilty if she has to shit all over someone else’s enthusiasm.

At the same time, Beca doesn’t like movies anymore.

“Maybe we can do something else, like talk about our feelings or go to the gynaecologist.” Jesse feigns shock, or at least Beca thinks he’s feigning. She points at the group of misfits and wonders if she’s going to regret it.

Whether it was the movie or the guy, she had yet to figure that out.

“You need a movie education.”

She’s trying to figure out how the hell she’s supposed to fit that in with the whole an hour of practice every day (at a minimum), plus the extra activities Aubrey wants them doing like fucking cardio, plus assignments, plus work, plus music, plus the downtime she _will_ need when she drops dead from exhaustion.

“I’d have to schedule it around Bella’s rehearsals. Which is always.”

Beca was never really good at math.

-

“What the fuck is a riff-off?” she asks Chloe that afternoon at practice.

-

This is new.

Beca is so out of her depth.

Literally. She’s only five foot one, and the deep end of the pool is a solid nine foot. Thankfully it’s empty. Seriously, why does Barden have an empty Olympic size swimming pool? Their athletics department sucks.

“Do we even have a swim team?” Stacie asks out of curiosity.

“So you just pick any song and roll with it?”

Chloe nods and smiles. “It’s the biggest on-campus competition for the acapella groups. The Trebles have been shitting all over us for like three years.”

It’s odd. Beca for a moment, actually dislikes Jesse.

She’s still out of her depth and it shows when she spits out a rap.

She dislikes him a little more when he wins and she loses, but, like, it’s not like she actually cares.

Aubrey is furious and Beca is kind of proud of whatever it was that just happened.

“Damn, shorty,” Chloe mutters, on their way out of the pool.

-

Beca can’t help herself.

She calls her mother on Saturday after practice and goes on and on for like fifteen minutes just about the riff-off.

“It was so awesome, it was like one of my mixes came to life or something.”

She can hear her mother smile through the phone; she sounds a little tired.

“How’s home?”

“It’s wet.”

“So nothing different. And how are you doing?”

“A little more tired than usual, but I’m okay.”

“Do you need anything, mum?”

“I’m fine honey. Promise.”

“Okay,” says Beca, even though she’s not convinced.

-

“The things I tell you about the Bella’s, they stay between us right?”

Jesse looks at her through a gap in three shelves. “Seriously? I mean I know Aubrey and Bumper are borderline committable, but Be-caw, why so serious?”

“Are you quoting a movie at me?”

Jesse smirks at her, and pulls his shirt back to reveal a creepy looking clown on his t-shirt.

“Dude, do you tell them the things I complain about?”

Jesse has the audacity to look shocked, and then reverts back to a grin. “No, I don’t. I complain about the guys too. Bumper is a bit of a self-serving jerk. I still feel bad for Benji. You don’t tell the girls do you?”

“Pfft no. It’s not like we have regular sleepovers with the secret sharing and the pillow fighting in our underwear and stuff.”

“That doesn’t happen?” Jesse seems disappointed and Beca can’t tell if he is being funny again.

“Dude, no, okay! Aubrey has us all on a very strict sleep, workout, and homework schedule. At this point, I’m surprised she hasn’t organised my toilet time.”

“Beca, I thought a lady didn’t poop?”

“Okay, you should know by now that I am not a lady, and just how full of shit I am!”

He laughs for too long, and Luke makes him go get burgers for lunch as punishment.

-

Beca has a secret.

She has several, to be honest, but her current one is that she’s obsessed with peanut butter and popcorn.

“Don’t tell, Aubrey,” she mutters.

Chloe had knocked on her door early on a Wednesday afternoon, Beca had actually been studying (and was thankful that she had already showered when the redhead had knocked).

Chloe smiles at her from the doorway. “Your secret is safe with me.”

“Are you going to stand in the doorway for very long? It starts to get weird after a while.”

“Well, I’ve noticed that you can get a little closed off, I guess when people get too close and, you know, I’m working on that personal boundaries thing that I told you about, and considering I burst in on you in the shower last time, I figured I would wait to be invited in rather than assuming I could enter your personal space.”

Beca smiles.

“Thank you. You can come in. What’s up?”

“I wanted to talk to you about the riff-off. The way you jumped in that was crazy good!” Chloe sits in her desk chair and Beca watches wearily, still a little tired and then dips some popcorn into the peanut butter jar. “Like, ‘No Diggity’? Seriously? It was epic.”

“Uh, thanks I think.”

She offers it to Chloe, who tries it with a grin. Beca is blushing and feeling a little overwhelmed by the praise.

“Seriously, how did you do that?”

“I make mixes,” she said, pointing at her laptop and all of the mixing gear. “I want to produce music one day. I’m surprised you didn’t notice ‘titanium’ playing when you walked in. It’s kind of been stuck in my head for a few weeks.”

Chloe laughs, and Beca realises how easy it is to feel settled with her. _‘Well, that’s new’._

“Becs, this is amazing. Maybe we could talk to Aubrey about doing something like this for regionals.”

“Please? Because I don’t know how many more times I can sing Ace of Bass before I want to jump off the physics building.”

Chloe laughs. She’s still intimidating and it makes Beca fidget.

“Can I listen to some more?”

“Really?”

“Yeah!”

Beca smiles and shuffles to her laptop.

“So why do you want to produce music?”

Beca feels a little shocked, no one has ever asked her _why_. Chloe isn’t even looking at her as the questions tumbles from her lips, she’s admiring the collection of mixes Beca has created and bouncing her head along to the beat.

Beca watches and to her it looks like Chloe is analysing the way the sounds have been mixed, bopping her head along and counting the beats.

“I grew up in one of those houses where there was always music playing. My mother is a piano teacher, so it wasn’t always well played music. She taught me how to play when I was a kid, and then I tried to mix songs on the piano and it didn’t quite work, so I got my hands on some mixing programs and taught myself how to make new sounds. It was a good escape for me as a teenager, a good distraction.”

“From what?”

Beca smiled sadly. “My, oh so amazing father cheated on my mother just as I was starting high school. I came home from school at the start of the year, and they were arguing and all he could say was that he couldn’t do it anymore. He didn’t say he was sorry, he didn’t beg for forgiveness, he didn’t even look at me. He just couldn’t do it.”

There’s a silence that settles over them. “While I’m sorry that you had to go through that, I’m kind of glad you had the music.”

Chloe had picked one of Beca’s old mixes, one of the ones she can remember selling to Courtney (the head cheerleader who, to quote the most popular girl in school herself, threw the best parties and therefore needed the best music).

Rhianna and Kesha filtered through her speaker as Chloe dances around in her seat next to Beca on her bed. “Your music is amazing, have you made any other mixes with Kesha and Beyonce?”

“Not yet, but I can probably make some.”

There’s a knock at her door and Beca checks her phone.

“Holy shit, I forgot that Jesse was coming over. You’ve been here for like four hours.”

“Crap, Aubrey is going to kill me. It’s my night to cook.”

“Be-caw! Did you forget about our movie night?” comes from the other side of her door.

“One sec, Jess!” Beca calls out as Chloe pulls her shoes on, and collects her phone. When did she take those off?!

“Is that a Treble?” Chloe asks, smirking.

Beca cringes. “Don’t tell Aubrey?”

“You’re secret is safe with me. He’s cute, is this a date?”

Beca shrugs and opens the door, to reveal Jesse standing there with his backpack and a bowl of popcorn that looks like he’s helped himself significantly too already.

“Hey Chloe,” he smiles. “Ready for your first night of ‘Movication’?”

“Reluctantly, she says, let’s do this!” Beca lets out a puff of air. “See you at practice, Chlo.”

Chloe is smiling, she lets out a small wave as she backs out of Beca’s dorm. “Make good choices.”

-

They don’t actually get to finish the movie; they spent too long listening to Beca’s music.

Her mixes were still playing and the Backstreet Boys had prompted Jesse to break out in song, dropping his bag onto her bed and checking out the details of the current track.

“Oasis and Paramore? Interesting choice, Be-caw. Not something I would have picked.”

He dances around the room, pathetically serenading her to the lyrics of Wonderwall. Beca laughs at him as he bows for his performance.

“Still classy, Swanson.”

“You know I try just for you,” he smirks. “What, no feathers from your destroyed pillows?”

“Ha! I made you wait for a reason; I had to clean up and we had to get dressed.”

Jesse was now one of two people that Beca felt comfortable with. One of two people that she had a connection with based purely on music.

“Let’s watch this damn movie, then.”

“You’re going to love it. I can die a hero if you can watch it to the end. And this is the greatest ending to a movie ever.”

Chloe’s words had been rolling around in her thoughts. Chloe had been rocking around in her brain right next to her words.

_Maybe they could talk to Aubrey about the set list._

_Is this a date?_

_Make good choices._

_Four hours with Chloe and she feels surprisingly not-drained, as perky and extroverted as her friend (?) could be._

Beca gives Chloe some credit, she’s more observant than she realised. (She noticed how Beca feels about personal space without Beca bottling it up and snapping at her because of it.)

Admittedly, spending time with Jesse is comfortable. He’s nice and he doesn’t tease her for not knowing movies, but instead takes it upon himself to educate her on the things she’s missed out on. It’s nice to spend time with someone who doesn’t expect something from her. And they both want to make music.

But they get so far in, and Jesse is transfixed by Judd Nelson when he looks up to Beca.

“You’re missing the ending.”

To be perfectly honest, Beca wasn’t really paying attention to the Breakfast Club anyway.

But they’re sitting pretty close and Jesse is only a few inches away.

And Beca doesn’t seem to really mind (he is kind of cute).

And then Kimmy-Jin walks in with two of her friends.

Her death glare makes Jesse grab his laptop and bid goodnight very quickly.

-

When Beca gets into practice a few days later, Chloe looks at her with expectant eyes.

Beca shrugs.

“I want details after rehearsal!”

“Warm ups, girls! High knees on the stairs!” Aubrey walks in behind them swiftly. “We have a lot to get through before Thanksgiving.”

“What is wrong with you?” Amy asks, incredulously. “You’re like a personal trainer, reincarnated.”

-

“Hey Benji,” Beca smiles.

Benji is sweet and kind and Beca had an inkling that he was the kid that got teased relentlessly in high school but never backed down from liking whatever he was picked on for.

“Hey Beca. Do you want to see a magic trick?”

Whenever she saw him, she went out of her way to be nice to him. What was happening to her, she was a cold hearted badarse dammit!

“Does it require participation?”

“Would you rather one that didn’t?”

“You know what? Lay it on me.”

Beca shuts her laptop and easily forgets about the Intro to Music Composition paper she was supposed to work on. “But only if you show me how you did it after.”

He looks wearily at her.

“Be enthusiastic during the performance and you’ve got a deal.”

Beca smiles and holds out her hand.

-

Before Thanksgiving break (which puts Beca in the spirit of being thankful for a week without Aubrey or a daily personal space invasion), Aubrey makes them run around campus delivering _singing telegrams._

She lets Fat Amy do the singing.

Beca just shoots people.

With a toy arrow, geez!

-

It’s obvious when Beca walks into their last practice that Chloe has said something to Aubrey. And that everyone is absolutely fucking wrecked.

Her captain is a little frostier than normal.

“Oh, I’ll solo. But on one condition. We pick a new song and I get to do the arrangement.”

“Maybe we should try something new. Maybe Beca is right,” says Chloe.

And then Aubrey proceeds to lose her ever loving shit.

Beca raises her eyebrows and notes that the rest of the girls have taken three steps back. She wonders if Chloe has ever actually stood up to Aubrey before.

“Aca-what?!”

People actually speak like that? And then Beca hears voices behind her.

“Ten bucks says she aca-pukes,” says Fat Amy.

“You’re aca-on.” Cynthia-Rose shakes Amy’s hand.

“You will be singing ‘Turn the Beat Around’ and that is the last I want to hear about this. The goal is to get back to finals, and these songs will get us there. So excuse me if I don’t take advice from some alt girl with her Mad Lib beats when she’s never been in a competition. Have I made myself clear?”

Aubrey is livid, and Beca refuses to break eye contact.

“Crystal. I guess I won’t solo then.”

Aubrey gives it to Amy, and as she calls the practice to an end, her shoulders flinch as if she was about to hurl chunks. Amy hands Cynthia a dollar that someone (probably Amy) has drawn a zero on.

Beca pretends that she isn’t disappointed and walks out.

-

Beca has a bad habit of missing that fourth step on the second floor when she’s walking up to her dorm.

She swears it’s half an inch smaller or half an inch bigger that the rest of the flight, and she misses it _every damn day._

There are permanent bruises up her left shin, and she’s pretty sure that the same guy has seen her do it nearly every time.

(This isn’t an uncommon sight. Three days ago, Beca spilt her nice full, nice hot cup of coffee all over herself. Her right arm just below her elbow is still a little red and she required a full outfit change before class. And then three days before that she managed to cut two of her fingers when attempting to cut some pizza. It was totally the pizza place’s fault. They didn’t use the pizza cutter properly, dicks!)

Beca gets a little more clumsier than usual when she’s tired.

Or frustrated.

Or upset.

-

She doesn’t go anywhere for the holiday break.

Flights to Seattle aren’t that expensive, but given her limited budget flying home for every

Her father invites her over for Thanksgiving dinner, but there’s an unspoken hatred between Beca and Sheila and she still can’t stomach a glimpse of the woman who split her parents up.

Don’t forget, Beca is very good at holding a grudge.

-

Beca gets three text messages on Thanksgiving.

_‘Happy Thanksgiving Beca! I hope you’re having a wonderful time with your family!’_

That one was from Chloe (she didn’t tell anyone she was staying on campus).

_‘Happy Thanksgiving honey, have a nice break and you’re still invited to dinner tonight.’_

That one was from her dad, obviously (she doesn’t acknowledge his text until two days later with a ‘sorry my phone died’).

_‘Be-caw! Happy bird day! We are continuing your movication when we get back!’_

That was Jesse (he challenged her to watch a movie without him while he was gone, but she doesn’t).

She read them in their voices and it makes her laugh a little because in her head Jesse has morphed into a squawking parrot.

Beca kind of misses Chloe.

Beca kind of misses Jesse.

Beca kind of never wants to admit that aloud.

-

Jesse makes her watch the original Star Wars series in three days (it was definitely payback for that comment she made about Darth Vader).

For Beca that’s a lot of movies.

Benji sits on the edge of Jesse’s bed eagerly, and then shows her three more magic tricks afterwards.

-

Jesse buys her lunch before a double shift at the station.

They flirt.

Well, Jesse flirts and Beca throws back sarcastic and witty comments.

That totally counts.

“What did you think of Star Wars?”

“How many movies are there?”

“Six. Soon to be nine! It’s going to be totally awesome.” He’s smiling expectantly at her. “What did you think?”

“I liked the little green dude?”

He smiles at her, and chuckles.

Beca has made it painfully aware to Jesse that movies aren’t really her thing.

-

Beca isn’t actually sure where the first half of the school year has gone.

She’s exhausted.

Classes that take a lot of concentration.

Assignments with classmates that take up so much energy.

Bella’s rehearsals that requires three Mega Death burritos and a nine hour nap to recover from.

Station work that is mundane and she’s pretty sure that she’s been doing it half asleep for at least a week and a half.

Jesse doesn’t mean to but watching movies takes a lot out of her as well.

Ugh, she’s exhausted.

It’s not the kind of exhaustion where you just haven’t gotten enough sleep. It’s the kind of exhaustion where even your bones are tired, and you can drink twelve cups of coffee that won’t even touch the sides. Half of the stuff that is said to her doesn’t even make it in far enough to go in one ear and out the other.

She sleeps late one morning, and if looks could skin Beca alive and hang her up in the quad it would have happened in late August.

It’s late November and Beca can’t remember the last time she had time to acknowledge that weight sitting at the bottom of her shoulder blades, or the tightness in her jaw.

Or when she had enough time for herself. It leaves her feeling on edge and uneasy, and it’s only a matter time before she snaps.

-

Beca vents to Chloe a little.

Without actually saying anything.

It’s a rare Tuesday night that Beca finds herself free from work, and preferring to ignore assignments, and she’s curled up on Chloe’s couch nursing a hot chocolate that is a few shades from cold.

(Aubrey isn’t there, so Beca can relax just a little more. Well as much as she can when her elbow is sore from where her elbow is sore from where she slammed it into her dorm room door frame when she forgot her laptop for class and had to rush back.)

All Beca has to do is smile and nod because Chloe is making enough conversation for the both of them, and the next thing she knows is that she’s being nudged gently and she doesn’t even remember closing her eyes.

“It’s too late for you to walk across campus, you can share with me.”

Beca simply nods and lets Chloe take her hoodie. She’s directed down the hallway and she’s oh so tired and comfy when she gets tucked in.

“Do you have class in the morning?”

Beca shakes her head, mumbling. “Not till two.”

 

“Okay.”

When she wakes up, Chloe is propped up next to her tapping away on her laptop and it’s after ten.

“Morning. Feeling better?”

Beca nods into Chloe’s pillow, and wraps herself up a little tighter in the duvet.

“Go back to sleep if you’re still tired. I’ll wake you up before your class.”

Beca smiles gratefully and falls back asleep, and then wakes up to her head being softly scratched, and Audrey (who has definitely realised that her arch nemesis has been asleep in Chloe’s bed all night) screeching in the kitchen.

-

It’s Saturday morning and Beca is feeling a little more normal.

Her almost fourteen hour sleep must have helped, so after Bella’s practice she buys Chloe a coffee to say thank you.

“I can be very introverted. Being around a lot of people, especially people I don’t know or I’m not really comfortable with take a lot of energy out of me. The smart arse comments and the sarcasm is just my way of dealing with those people.”

“You don’t have to explain, I get it,” Chloe smiles, over a mountain of whipped cream sitting atop her hot chocolate. (Chloe doesn’t drink coffee.) “I’m sorry if I’m one of those people that drain you.”

“Yeah, that’s the thing. You’re not. One of those people. That’s how I fell asleep so easily the other night,” Beca smiles nervously. “I don’t know why, and despite having walked in on me in the shower and being like ridiculously perky at all hours of the day, you’re one of, like, three people who don’t do that. It’s easy to be around you. You don’t ask anything of me, so it’s kind of like I get energy from you sometimes. God, that sounds stupid.”

Chloe beams.

-

Beca yawns her way through the last of the semester’s classes, and a few more Bella’s practices, and promises Audrey (but more Chloe) that she would practice at home.

“Yes, every day.”

Aubrey is not naïve enough to know that Beca is being truthful.

“And your cardio!”

Ugh.

-

Christmas break is a nice change of pace.

Beca and her mother don’t really go all out for a feast, it’s only the two of them in a small house a few miles out of town.

Last year they made grilled cheese for dinner, and watched the Big Bang Theory with a pint of choc mint ice cream before they traded presents.

Her mother wasn’t feeling very well last Christmas.

She spends her days at the dining table, books spread out as she works on the four papers she has due first week back, and her mixes playing through a speaker rather than her headphones. Now that she’s at home, she doesn’t feel as on edge as she has been at Barden.

Beca spends her nights telling her mother all about Barden, and the Bella’s, and the Station, and Chloe, and Jesse. And then her full name is used to get her to sing.

It’s kind of their thing.

Playing piano and singing.

George Michael is a favourite, and so is Elton John.

(Beca is convinced that her mother is plotting against her, trying to abolish those stubborn and prideful parts of her soul that she gets from her father).

(Also singing with her mother counts as practicing right? The set list is embedded so far into her brain that even a lobotomy isn’t going to remove it. And yeah, she totally did her cardio workouts that Aubrey planned for each of them.)

-

They almost lose to sock puppets.

_Sock puppets!_

First, they have to accept a ride with the Trebles. And then they barely scrape past at regionals.

The next thing Beca knows is that there is a broken window, and she’s holding half of the trophy, and Amy is running off into the Performance Centre yelling something about vertical running.

The rest of the Bella’s just watch as everyone else scatters.

And Beca is screwed.

This is still not her proudest moment: being arrested for the destruction of public property. But she’s not being charged at least, which is a plus. But her mood doesn’t improve

“Why would you call my dad?”

“What, do you have another parent I don’t know about?” he asks, “They had you in handcuffs, it looked pretty serious!”

“I don’t want your help, okay! You’re not my boyfriend, Jesse.”

He mumbles behind her and she chooses to ignore him as her father all but refuses to listen to her side and basically backs out of their deal.

“It wasn’t my fault, okay? It was an accident. I was just doing what you told me to do: make friends, make memories!”

“You know damn well that this is not what I meant. Now get in the car, Beca.”

-

Beca fumes the whole way home.

She slams the door of her father’s car and ignores both of them.

Ugh!

-

It’s after midnight when she finally gets back to her dorm.

Thankfully, it’s a Friday so Kimmy-Jin has no qualms leaving their dorm, but not before calling the waiting Bella’s an inconvenience.

“Did you get yourself a bitch?” Cynthia-Rose asks with a wink.

She makes Beca laugh. “You guys waited up for me?”

“Of course we did.”

Chloe is smiling at her softly, she can understand that the bags under Beca’s eyes are a false representation of how tired this entire _event_ has made her.

Again, Beca wastes what little energy she has left to argue with a brick wall. Chloe even cowers when Aubrey snaps at her, only to beckon her a few minutes later to leave.

“I’m going to stay with Beca for a little.”

Aubrey doesn’t argue, and it’s the first time Beca has ever seen her silenced so quickly.

-

“Are you okay?”

Beca shrugs, “I’m so fucking tired.”

She doesn’t snap, or lash out. Hell, she barely even breathes her words loud enough for Chloe to hear her.

Instead, Chloe pulls her into a sideways hug and lets her sit in silence.

Beca thinks Chloe needs this as much as she does.

-

Three days later, Beca _runs._

That’s right, you heard it here first. She runs to the station because that’s her mix playing on the radio.

Beca _fucking_ Mitchell just got air time on the Barden University Radio Station.

Regardless of the fact that less than a third of students actually listen to it, she has air time.

She sends a message to Chloe, who replies back with a lot of emoji’s and exclamation points.

She sends a message to her mother, who answers with a sarcastic comment about marking the date on the calendar on the fridge.

As it turns out, sarcasm is a genetic trait and it carried through on the maternal DNA.

Luke invites her to hear a deejay play, but she has flight attendant training so she can’t make it.

“Jesse has it too, tonight is the role-play component about how well we can serve pretzels and wave goodbye to people. We get graded out of ten. His outfit isn’t as good as this.”

“See you tonight.”

He’s mad at her. But he doesn’t have the right to be, so Beca smiles at Luke and heads out to warm-ups.

-

There are only three groups performing.

Beca and Amy are making bets at the back of the group about when _exactly_ Aubrey was going to blow chunks (Cynthia-Rose holds the money for them and Beca loses the eight dollars and forty two cents she has in cash in her bag).

“We do it just as we rehearsed! And we will make it to the finals,” she snaps. There’s a crazy look in her eyes as she looks at Beca. “Exactly.”

They’re screwed.

Beca knows this.

Chloe knows this.

Aubrey knows this, at least under that crazed expression about the Ace of Bass winning them a place in the finals, Beca is mostly sure that Aubrey knows this.

So Beca does what Beca does best and throws in a little Bulletproof.

She’s pretty sure Chloe smiles, but Aubrey missteps and is going to murder Beca in her sleep.

That much Beca knows.

“We’re you _trying_ to screw us up?”

“Seriously? The entire audience was ready for a nap, dude!”

Beca feels very small and lonely, especially once she realises that she’s standing on her own and the rest of the girls are behind Aubrey, scuffing their toes, and crossing and uncrossing their arms out of awkwardness.

“This isn’t the Beca show!”

Nobody backs her up.

“I told you she wasn’t a Bella.”

That stings more than Beca thinks it should.

Chloe tries, but Beca does what Beca does best and pushes her away. “It’s okay, Chlo. I mean, you don’t actually think you have say, do you?”

And then she snaps at Jesse. “I don’t need your help. Get out of my face!”

It kind of hurts.

“You know what? If this is what I get for trying to help? I’m done.”

-

Beca sulks for three days.

She has English with Stacie and Fat Amy, but she doesn’t look up when they enter the lecture theatre.

She has Psych with Cynthia-Rose, but she sits on the other side of the room.

Lilly, and Jessica, and Ashley are in Intro to Music Comp. Beca doesn’t go that class because it’s smaller than the other two.

Luke lets her swap some shifts around so she doesn’t have to see Jesse.

-

“For what it’s worth, while I don’t agree with how you did it, I am on your side about this,” Chloe says.

She disregarded the whole personal space thing she was meant to be practicing and threatened to follow Beca into the shower if she didn’t come out for a coffee.

It makes Beca feel guilty.

“I’m sorry.”

“Becs, there’s nothing to be sorry about. Maybe we just weren’t meant to make it to finals this year.”

Beca knows she’s disappointed, even though she’s hiding it pretty well; she doesn’t look as well put together as she normally does for Chloe Beale standards, dressed down in jeans and a sweater to accommodate the weather changes.

“No, well, I am sorry for that. But I’m sorry for snapping at you. You tried to back me up but Aubrey is too much of a bitch to listen to you.”

“She’s still my best friend.”

There’s a beat of silence, and Beca thinks she’s about to break. Her chest is heavy, and her mind is going about fourteen thousand, six hundred and twenty three miles an hour. She feels sick and like she’s either going to cry or puke.

It’s not even spring break yet. What the actual fuck? If she can’t make it a year at college how the hell is she supposed to make a life in Los Angeles?

“This wasn’t the plan, okay?! The plan was to go to LA, and get a job. Not to go to college, and join this glorified glee club and actually like it! The plan wasn’t to get let down again by people who were actually starting to mean something to me. The plan wasn’t to get disappointed by people I was starting to see as important. The plan wasn’t to meet a boy I might like more than a friend!”

Chloe doesn’t reach out; they’ve spent enough time together now that she knows that when Beca is upset, touching her or hugging her only makes her withdraw more.

“This wasn’t the plan, Chlo.”

“Becs, you need to breathe.”

-

Spring break rolls around.

Beca is pretty sure that she has the entire campus to herself.

She definitely has her dorm to herself. And the station.

(She’s allowed to play whatever she wants, Luke even praised her mixes after he admitted that he only listened to them because Jesse wouldn’t stop hassling him about it,)

This is what she wanted back in August, right? To be left alone to her own devices, especially if she had to be here.

So why does it hurt so fucking much?

-

Beca watches the Breakfast Club from start to finish.

She cries at the movie.

And then closes her laptop and cries at whatever the mess is that her life has become these days, because now that’s she’s started she can’t stop.

How do you turn this off?

-

Beca gets a text from her mum, checking in on how her only daughter is fairing after all the aca-drama.

Beca gets a text, or nineteen from Chloe, checking in on her and updating her on the ‘nodes’ surgery (which was successful by the way, and Beca is pretty sure she’s one of the few who know that Chloe was getting it done).

And then one ridiculously early the weekend before classes pick up.

_The Footnotes used a high schooler. They were disqualified. We got into the finals!_

She doesn’t quite know how she feels about this message from Chloe. So she responds with a subdued congrats and thinks on it between songs at the station.

They only had to beat one other team, so did her ‘contribution’ actually help?

-

Now that Beca has had to spend time with other people, people that she would consider friends if it hadn’t all gone to hell in a handbasket (that may or may not have been her fault), she finds herself missing it.

You can only have so much fun hanging out by yourself.

She admits that much to her mother for their regular Wednesday night phone call.

“Maybe you should talk to them, apologise?”

“Why? How is this my fault?”

“Honey, I’m not saying that anyone is at fault. All of you sound ridiculously stubborn, and I know that you are. Okay, trust me, I learnt all about the strength of your pride when you turned fifteen.”

“Dude.”

“Honey, you have a habit of pushing people away. And I know for a fact that you actually really enjoy being in that group. You found a spot where you fit in perfectly.”

“Sometimes, it’s just easier to push them away.”

Her mother sighs on the other end. “I know that. But it also makes it a lot more lonely. Being lonely and being a loner are two different things remember?”

“What do I do?”

“That is up to you. You’re an adult. You can make your own decisions Beca. But if you’re going to leave something you care about, make sure you do it the right way.”

“Why do you have to be so good at this advice giving thing? And the guilt tripping?”

“I’m your mother, it’s my job.”

-

Beca tries to talk to Jesse.

He slams the door in her face.

She deserved that.

“You were right, okay? I’m a douche. I’m sorry.”

And then she tries to pick her head up as she leaves.

-

Beca makes her way to rehearsal.

(Chloe gave her their new schedule).

What the fuck is going on?

It’s absolute chaos when Beca walks in. It takes her yelling as loudly as she can for Amy to put Aubrey down, and for Stacie to stop blowing her Barden University issued rape whistle in Cynthia-Rose’s face.

“Is that puke?” Beca asks, skirting around the piano carefully.

“This is a Bella’s practice.”

“Yeah, I know,” Beca nods. Chloe is smiling again despite having been wrestling with Aubrey only moments before for the pitch pipe. “You’ve got a little something something on your chin there, Aubrey. No? Okay, here goes. I was a dick. It was a dick move what I pulled. I shouldn’t have changed anything without talking to you guys first. I let you guys down and I’m sorry. If you will have me, Aubrey, I want back in.”

There’s nothing but silence.

Which is broken by the God awful sound of the metal feet of a foldout chair across a polished concrete floor.

“Wait,” comes Aubrey’s voice.

“Oh, thank you. That would have been embarrassing.”

-

They share some secrets about themselves, try and bargain for a level of trust.

Cynthia-Rose has a gambling problem (not what they were expecting).

Stacie has sex a lot (that they knew).

Chloe isn’t supposed to sing (Beca knew, but judging by the look on Aubrey’s face, she didn’t).

Fat Amy isn’t her real name (it’s really Fat Patricia. Really, what was Beca expecting?)

Aubrey is in love with that guy from the Trebles, the one who is always riding the unicycle (Oath and wolves be damned).

Beca is sarcastic (that was a given. A Tony nomination at twelve years old? Really?).

“Alright, let’s remix this shit!” says Beca, beaming when Aubrey hands her the pitch pipe. “But maybe not here.”

-

Beca is shitting herself.

“Aubrey. Pick a song.”

This is her shot.

“Bruno Mars. Just The Way You Are.”

She doesn’t want to screw it up.

“Okay. Tricky. But I can do it.”

There’s a lot of pointing, and shuffling around before she figures it out.

“Chloe, take the lead. Aubrey follow me.”

And then it comes to life, and they’re all grinning, proud of themselves, and Chloe is beaming at her so hard Beca wonders when her cheek muscles are actually going to start hurting.

Why are they at the pool?

“Hands in, Bellas.”

It’s taken seven months for Beca’s rag-tag team of _friends_ to get this ‘go-team-and-break’ thing right.

And then it goes wrong? Or even more right?

Something happens.

“With your messed up vocal cords, you can hit the lower register!”

Something else happens too. Seven months, and they actually understand what Lilly says.

“Geez, bitch you don’t have to shout!”

-

It takes four days.

For four days, Beca doesn’t do anything other than work on mixes.

They only have to be five minutes long.

No more than eight, and they have to use at least three songs in their set list.

It has to be just right.

It has to be perfect.

Kimmy-Jin makes several comments about the peanut butter jars, and coffee cups from Barden’s Beans that the Bella’s have been bringing her.

She also makes a comment about the smell that started around the end of day two.

Beca forgets to study for finals that are conveniently starting the week after finals.

Ugh.

-

All of the competing teams have a row to themselves in the audience. The Bella’s pulled the short straw and got drawn for last.

At least they didn’t have to drive anywhere this time (Amy is still fuming about the burrito sniper incident).

Beca’s smile is subdued as Jesse leads his group (he’s still mad); she yells out when Benji makes his debut.

-

“I love you awesome nerds.”

“Yeah, you bunch of dicks!”

They laugh at Amy, and follow Chloe when she descends on Beca for a group hug.

-

Jesse isn’t even looking up when they start.

Beca knows, because she’s pretty much watching him the entire time they’re singing.

It’s when he hears Simple Minds bleeding into their set that he raises his gaze.

Beca feels a little foolish, and a little hopeful when she lifts her fist.

Halfway through, he lifts his own. He’s laughing and smiling, and Beca feels a little more hopeful.

Beca smiles back, and when they finish, she’s pretty sure that this is the biggest ovation Aubrey has ever seen the Bella’s get in her four years of performing. Beca also runs from the stage to stand in the audience, right in from of Jesse.

“You’re an aca-girl,” Jesse says.

“And you’re an aca-boy,” Beca replies. She’s rolling her eyes on the inside but that’s kind of being overpowered by the elation she’s feeling. “That is so cheesy, Jess.”

He laughs and Beca can feel his hands (everything is a little surreal, and loud, it’s really loud).

“Beca?”

“What?”

“Shut up.”

And he kisses her.

-

This wasn’t the plan.

The humidity and the whole college experience and the finding a boy she likes and the group of friends?

It wasn’t the plan.

A national collegiate acapella champion was not the plan.

Friends were not the plan.

A boyfriend was not the plan.

A reason to come back for her sophomore year? That definitely wasn’t the plan.

Yet here she is listening to Chloe and Aubrey are trying to explain the whole captaincy thing to Beca (not to brag, but Aubrey gave her the pitch pipe for keeps).

About now, she would be looking at the sky asking the clouds what she did to deserve this. “Captain?”

Beca’s smirking with pride and she actually hugs Aubrey. She doesn’t say ‘I told you so’.

It doesn’t last very long, but the point still stands.

Beca isn’t quite sure what the hell happened to her life.

She’s meant to be a badarse loner who would rather have her head stuck between her headphones for hours on end.

(And if she may or may not have had an increased in her anxiety levels when said headphones were removed, well that is another story. Kind of. Socialising is hard sometimes, okay?)

Instead, Beca finds herself at the end of the semester walking out of Barden’s Beans with a quadruple shot frappucino (she had to cram for that Intro to Music Comp final), having fourteen different conversations with nine of her _friends_.

Beca isn’t entirely sure how she survived the year. But it was kind of cool.

And now she has a deadline to submit her sophomore year enrolment forms.

And pick a major, and the appropriate classes that go along with that major.

And talk to the Dean of Housing, because apparently being national champs means you qualify to have a club house instead of dorm rooms, and being captain of said national champions group means you get that responsibility.

And figure out what the plan is for next year. Does she need a co-captain? When should she start working on arrangements?

Ugh.

College.


End file.
